Farmers and landowners have long been aware of the need to diversify into other areas to boost their income. Whether arranging an event yourself or giving permission to a third party to use your land, you will need to ensure that you have the right specialist insurance covers in place to protect you and your assets. Adviser sat down with Ed Nottingham, Insurance Director to discuss the measures landowners should consider in order to protect their assets when using land to hold events.
Check that you have the right insurance Whilst the potential profit margins for organising an event on your own land may be higher, the administration and organisation requirements are far greater than for a allowing a third party to host a licensed event. Holding your own event requires that you undertake a thorough risk assessment of all the activities which may be happening as part of the event in order to mitigate the legal liabilities and potential for claims or damages from members of the public. Core insurance covers you should have in place are: ✓ ✓ Public liability – to provide protection against claims for accidental injury from members of the public attending the event. ✓ ✓ Employee liability – covers not only your paid employees, but also family and friends who volunteer, even if they do so on a casual basis. ✓ ✓ Product liability – protects you against claims following the use of food, fuel or other goods supplied for the event. ✓ ✓ Business interruption – makes up lost income following cancellation or disruption of the event after an unavoidable incident such as a fire or storm. ✓ ✓ Cyber liability – festivals are heavily promoted on social media and other digital marketing activities; ticket and event information is usually sent out in the same way. Cyber risk insurance can cover data restoration and forensic
Consider outside influences It goes without saying that whether licensing or running an event yourself, it is important to work with your local community to keep them informed and to make sure there is minimal disruption during the event. Neighbours have the right to object and petition the local council to limit the scope of the event or even to obtain an injunction to stop it happening altogether. The landowner also needs to check there are no covenants restricting the use of the land. However, no matter how much you try and mitigate your risks and exposures there are always events which can occur, and which are out of your control. An experienced broker can help you navigate the pitfalls of insurance cover and help you think about the covers which you might not realise you need or know are available. For example, what would happen if the weather was a wash out and attendance was significantly reduced? Or one of your main performers didn’t show up? What would be the impact of a terrorist threat on your event? These are all questions which your broker should be able to discuss with you and ensure that no matter what unexpected issues arise that you have an insurance cover in place which means you and your event are protected.
According to Ed, before committing to any event you should undertake a risk assessment by considering some of the key issues: Ensure that you have a robust agreement and licence in place If you are the landowner and are giving an event organiser permission to use your land you will usually need to give them a licence to occupy. Although you have given the licensed organiser temporarily ‘control’ of the land, you as the landowner could still be judged as having a degree of control over activities taking place on it and therefore could be seen to have a duty of care to ensure visitors are kept safe. This means that you could still be held to account if festivalgoers suffer harm or injury, for example if someone breaks their ankle when they trip over a rabbit hole. For this reason, you need to ensure that any event licence should be rigorous in identifying the requirements for site responsibilities and all aspects of health and safety. You should be very careful to ensure that the festival licence specifies that the organisers themselves have appropriate insurance cover to protect you as the landowner against the cost of possible claims and ensure that appropriate indemnities are given for any claims brought against you.
Scrutton Bland regularly work with clients who organise events on their land. For more information on insuring your land or event contact Ed Nottingham
on 0330 058 6559 or email hello@scruttonbland.co.uk
investigation following the theft of data, or if personal information is unintentionally made public.
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